Apt Degrees of Care

You tend attentively to friends

with apt degrees of care.

Like your translucent blue chum

who consists, nine-tenths, of air.

How gently you embrace him

so as not to bruise his skin,

while gutturally growling tales

of fights, rough sex and sin.

You know he craves details

about the hearts he never won

or broke, the lusts his frailty kept

him from. He has his darkest fun

imagining what you’ve done –

and indeed, intend again to do –

given the egregiously appalling

reputation that precedes you.

.